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Water fluoridation confirmed to prevent dental decay in US children and adolescents

The fluoridation of America’s drinking water was among the great public health achievements of the twentieth century but there is a scarcity of studies from the last three decades investigating the impact of water fluoridation on dental health in the U.S. population. A recent study “Water fluoridation and dental caries in U.S. children and adolescents,” published in the Journal of Dental Research, evaluated associations between the availability of community water fluoridation and dental caries (decay) experience in U.S. child and adolescent populations.

In this large study, county-level estimates of the percentage of population with community water fluoridation from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ‘s Water Fluoridation Reporting System were merged with dental examination data from 10 years of National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys (1999-2004 and 2011-2014).

The analysis showed that U.S. children and adolescents with greater access to fluoridated drinking water were less likely to experience dental caries. Counties in which over 75% of the population had access to community water fluoridation saw a 30% reduction in dental caries experience in the primary dentition, and a 12% reduction in dental caries experience in the permanent dentition, compared to counties in which less than 75% had access to community water fluoridation.

The findings are consistent with evidence from the last half-century showing that community water fluoridation continues to provide a substantial dental health benefit for U.S. children and adolescents. The current study boosts the evidence by showing that the benefit is most pronounced early in life, in the primary teeth of 2-8 year olds.

“This study confirms previously reported findings and provides additional evidence in support of water fluoridation as a core public health intervention promoting oral health,” said Maria Ryan, President of the American Association for Dental Research. “AADR supports community water fluoridation as a safe and effective, evidence-based intervention for the prevention of dental caries and this report further adds to that evidence base.”




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8 thoughts on “Water fluoridation confirmed to prevent dental decay in US children and adolescents”

  1. Once again J willie spreads his own unsubstantiated opinions , with no basis of fact
    Ok so please show the lancet paper that states fluoride is a neurotoxin?
    please show the paper that says fluoride at .7P.P.M lowers I.Q?
    Please show the paper that says fluoride at .7PPM causes any thyroid damage?
    Peer reviewed quality medical case histories would be the only papers accepted
    A failure to provide them will be taken as an admission that the whole anti fluoride movement is a pack of lies with no scientific findings to back anything up

  2. The latest study, published in February, was conducted by a team of environmental scientists with the support of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS). These scientists examined rats that consumed water and food with different concentrations of fluoride, including fluoride exposure during prenatal development. At these exposure levels, the researchers wrote that they “observed no exposure-related differences in motor, sensory, or learning and memory performance” for any of the nine different tests they conducted. Furthermore, thyroid hormone levels (TSH) were not altered as a function of 10 or 20 parts per million (ppm) of fluoride.

    The only side effect the NIEHS study found—inflammation of the prostate gland—occurred only at a fluoride exposure of 20 ppm, which, when applied to animal studies, is equivalent to more than five times higher than the level used for fluoridating water.

  3. Just the latest example of cynical fanaticism fixated on promoting useless non-consensual fluoride treatment of Americans. Those ghouls never give up.

  4. Fluoridation may or may not help teeth.
    But the patient pictured in the above story probably died early, from chronic diseases like diabetes, kidney disease, arthritis, Alzheimer’s, calcification of blood vessels and the heart.
    But her teeth look great.

  5. After 70 years of use, it is obvious that fluoridation has failed. So why risk people’s health on this toxic industrial waste fluoride?
    The Journal of the American Dental Association (Dye 2017) reports, “65% of poor 6-8 year-olds and 12-15 year-olds have cavities in their primary and permanent teeth, respectively. More than 40% of children have dental cavities by the time they reach kindergarten. “… there has been little improvement in preventing caries initiation,” said Dye.
    “Childhood tooth decay is the #1 chronic childhood illness in America.”

  6. The EPA has now classified fluoride as a neurotoxin (nerve and brain poison). Also, the world’s most renowned medical journal, “LANCET,” in 2014 reported that fluoride is a neurotoxin in the same category as mercury, lead and arsenic.

    Fluoridation causes enamel damage (dental fluorosis) in 41% of all children (CDC data) and has also been shown to lower IQ in children with 50 research studies. Now it has been proven to cause ADHD, as reported in the “Journal of Environmental Health” (by Malin & Till, 2015).

    A 2015 study from England’s University of Kent found that drinking water with added fluoride can wreck your thyroid, and lead to weight gain and depression.

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